take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

December 24, 2011

Wow. Kolorful KOL's mighty transmitter once hummed and crackled from a ship cocked over there, but did you know Fisher Communications once had its flour mills on Harbor Island? (Bet they wish they had a few flour mills to fall back on at the moment) Check that out at HistoryLink.

Up in the Northwest they say that the constant overcast weather makes people depressed, ill-tempered even. It might be an aggravating factor in this case. Well, doubtlessly it was another crappy rainy day when 1300 KKOL-AM owners were informed this March by Coast Guard that they needed to shut off their radio station. This was another painful notch in the history of a station that somone was clearly trying to kill for nearly a century.

The irony here is that back in 2002, KKOL became the only US radio station operating from a ship. That January they'd been approved to operate at 1000 watts with temporary facilities to be installed aboard the 175 foot cargo ship, the "Coastal Ranger," in Seattle’s Elliott Bay.

KKOL-AM, first went on the air back in the 1920’s as KOL-AM. One of the first radio stations in Seattle. In the begining the station’s studio and transmitter were located on Harbor Island, just south of downtown Seattle near the ports shipyards. Fifty years later the station left there Harbor Island studios for the Northern Life Tower, downtown Seattle and dropped their historic KOL call sign. But they continued to transmit from the 400-foot tower on the Island.

In the 90’s, the Port began expanding their shipping operations as they "containerized" the port. This expansion on Harbor Island encroached on and eventually occupied by the transmitter and tower facilities. In the summer of 2001, the Port came to an agreement with KKOL to abandon the Harbor Island transmitter facility hence the Coastal Ranger install... It was to be temporary, An application was filed with the FCC for a new 50,000 Watt replacement facility about 15 miles south of the Harbor Island site. In 2003 a pier fire nearly took them out again.

Fast forward to today. KKOL-AM finally moves off the boat. Alan Cabodi, VP of Manufacturing for U.S. Oil said in a statement to the FCC that that refinery is now investigating reports of sparks while working with cranes.and that they blame these on the proximity to KKOL's brand new 50k signal. He also said that KKOL-AM was only AM radio station in North America that was operating at high power near a refinery. KKOL retorts that that previously KJR-AM had operated within a couple of miles of the refinery for over two years with its blanketing contour over the refinery with no ill effects other than some telephone interference. More here.

At the request of the FCC, KKOL continues to operate at 25 kW using their nighttime pattern to reduce the signal at the tanker dock while a permanent solution is found. U.S. Oil says they remain unsatisfied with the KKOL owner’s response to the risk of a potential catastrophe and the corresponding hazard to the public safety. More here. The local SBE has a little to say as well.

August 06, 2011

With a career spanning more than 50 years in radio, Rick Buckley died last Sunday after suddenly falling ill on Saturday at his home in Greenwich Conn. He was 74 and had been President of Buckley Broadcasting since succeeding his father in 1972.

Though the company includes the flagship WOR in New York and stations in Connecticut, Mr. Buckley had strong links to Seattle radio. The Buckleys bought heritage rocker KOL (now KKOL) from teevee and game show moguls Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for $1 million in 1967.

Thus began in earnest, KOL's epic battle with KJR for no.1 Top 40 station in Seattle.

Heritage Seattle radio man, Dick Curtis told BlatherWatch about his memories working for the Buckley those years:

May 14, 2011

Wow. Kolorful KOL's mighty transmitter once hummed and crackled from a ship cocked over there, but did you know Fisher Communications once had its flour mills on Harbor Island? (Bet they wish they had a few flour mills to fall back on at the moment) Check that out at HistoryLink.

Up in the Northwest they say that the constant overcast weather makes peopel depressed, ill-tempered even. It might be an aggravating factor in this case. Well, doubtlessly it was another crappy rainy day when 1300 KKOL-AM owners were informed this March by Coast Guard that they needed to shut off their radio station. This was another painful notch in the history of a station that somone was clearly trying to kill for nearly a century.

The irony here is that back in 2002, KKOL became the only US radio station operating from a ship. That january they'd been approved to operate at 1000 watts with temporary facilities to be installed aboard the 175 foot cargo ship, the "Coastal Ranger," in Seattle’s Elliott Bay.

KKOL-AM, first went on the air back in the 1920’s as KOL-AM. One of the first radio stations in Seattle. In the begining the station’s studio and transmitter were located on Harbor Island, just south of downtown Seattle near the ports shipyards. Fifty years later the station left there Harbor Island studios for the Northern Life Tower, downtown Seattle and dropped their historic KOL call sign. But they continued to transmit from the 400-foot tower on the Island.

In the 90’s, the Port began expanding their shipping operations as they "containerized" the port. This expansion on Harbor Island encroached on and eventually occupied by the transmitter and tower facilities. In the summer of 2001, the Port came to an agreement with KKOL to abandon the Harbor Island transmitter facility hence the Coastal Ranger install... It was to be temporary, An application was filed with the FCC for a new 50,000 Watt replacement facility about 15 miles south of the Harbor Island site. In 2003 a pier fire nearly took them out again.

Fast forward to today. KKOL-AM finally moves off the boat. Alan Cabodi, VP of Manufacturing for U.S. Oil said in a statement to the FCC that that refinery is now investigating reports of sparks while working with cranes.and that they blame these on the proximity to KKOL's brand new 50k signal. He also said that KKOL-AM was only AM radio station in North America that was operating at high power near a refinery. KKOL retorts that that previously KJR-AM had operated within a couple of miles of the refinery for over two years with its blanketing contour over the refinery with no ill effects other than some telephone interference. More here.

At the request of the FCC, KKOL continues to operate at 25 kW using their nighttime pattern to reduce the signal at the tanker dock while a permanent solution is found. U.S. Oil says they remain unsatisfied with the KKOL owner’s response to the risk of a potential catastrophe and the corresponding hazard to the public safety. More here. The local SBE has a little to say as well.

January 03, 2011

On the brighter side, popular Seattle radio host Bob Rivers will return on April 1... as morning man on Clear Channel's KJRFM, Seattle's newest oldies station. He'll be joined by sidekicks, Spike O'Neill and "Downtown" Joe Bryant. The non-political Rivers couldn't come to contract terms with CBS last summer and left KZOK October 1, triggering all manner of speculation. Before KZOK, Rivers' hosted Bob Rivers' Twisted Radio on CBS' KISW for a decade.

Sadly, KTTH's The Dave Boze Show (m-f, 3-4p) on shrank from 3 hours to one, his time abrogated by 3 refried hours of the tedious Sean Hannity. After losing an entire talk station (KVI), this year, the Boze's replacement was another blow to live and local radio.

We're not sure what in hell someone does with one hour of talk in the late afternoon, and listening to Boze Monday afternoon, it doesn't sound like he does either.

We fear for the future of Boze Show... talk radio isn't exactly a growth profession here or anywhere else, although John Carlson (KOMO m-f, 9a-12p) has told listeners recently thT he "has a feeling" that another conservative talk station might pop up in the Seattle market in next year or so.

George Noory's conspiracy theoretical Coast to Coast AM, began Tuesday on KIRO, (m-f, 10p-4a) Bonneville's last acquisition from the defuncted KVI. (where we caught a question being posed Monday evening: "What could cook the organs without liquifiying the body!?" Oh dear.)

October 02, 2010

It was the winter of '55-56. Bill Wippel was behind the mic, DJ-ing at Yakima's KUTI.

It was mighty cold that day (minus 25 F., Wippel says) and a small herd of local mice
decided they'd had enough of the Yakima winter so they invaded. The ran into the xmtr (transmitter) and, Wip says, "Their tails would get caught in the mercury
vapor tubes, throwing us off the air."

July 24, 2010

His radio career started in Hoquiam (as did the careers of several other Seattle locals such as Steve West (KJR) and Bill Munson (KOL, KJR, KAYO).

Buzz moved-on up to Centralia’s KITI (where his on-air name was Tom Cat), then to Tacoma’s long-gone KMO, then KVI.

He left KVI in the mid-1960s for KOL, where he kick-started the station’s Top 40 format (KOLORFUL KOL) going head-to-head against market leader KJR.

His next stop was KISN (Portland) for a short time, back to KOL and then to KJR. Buzz was the program director at KING radio during the station’s ill-fated foray into Top 40 (again head-to-head against market leader KJR)in the 1970s.

After that, Barr became sales manager for KYAK-KGOT in Anchorage, then bought a station in partnership in Kenai.

He writes, “I did really well but my partner took me down to a point where I came back to Aberdeen (Grays Harbor) opened an agency, doing well until last year when I retired -- hit 72 with 52 years in broadcasting, and miss it in a big way."

June 12, 2010

Since this was published last year, five of 13 the Seattle talkers
profiled have been shuffled off the live & local coil. Phil the News
Junkie passed on without anyone ever really knowing it (We just looked up
one day and he was gone). Peter Weissbach pulled his dick out of KVI,
after the pressure from his illegal hiring practices
became too much for Fisher to bear. The Mouthing Off boyz (Dave Carson, Kevin Dodrill) shut their
collective piehole
one fine day in March; veteran broadcaster Mike Siegel’s show on
business KKOL passed in
February like a watermelon seed though the colon of radio.

~~

December 07, 2009

Conservative
talk radio was invented in Seattle, now it’s as endangered as the wild
Puget Sound salmon. and let’s face it, save Dave Ross, there ain’t no
local liberal talk.

With the KVI’s elimination of Kirby
Wilbur, another block of local airtime went to out-of-town,
out-of-touch, syndicated blabbermeisters- sending a butt-load of ad $
somewhere else.

The
Commentators(KOMO m-f, 10a-2p). Veteran conservative and
man about Seattle media John Carlson (he was conservative before it
was cool) battles each day with scratchy Channel 4 commentator Ken
Schram. The show isn’t all that
political- much of the time the two Catholic suburbanites debate
pedestrian issues like
pit bulls, and school dress codes- the disagreement is kinda pro
forma. This hale-fellow-well-met debate was moved from KVI because
the very presence of the free-wheeling libertarian Schram was
unacceptable and the
shriveled right-wing listener base couldn’t abide any impurity
whatsoever on "their" station. Anymore, the once-mighty KVI community is
but a wide spot in the road, and the cranky, codgerly listeners now
have bupkis except a bunch of fresh and canned national talkers, and an
hour of the damaged Peter Weissbach.

Dave Boze (KTTH
m-f, 3-6p) 37, a Hillsdale College alum, a low-key, Reagan conservative
who worked long as a KVI producer, and finally got his own show- the
only local offering on KTTH. He married into a well-connected
conservative family- his wife, Peggy O’Ban, 53, was spokeswoman for
Washington Women for McCain, and a
Bush-appointed AID official. Her brother Steve is a conservative
attorney who successfully argued against gay marriage before the state
Supreme Court,

(photo: Producer
Jake and Dave Boze)

and unsuccessfully toiled to save us
last election from the broadening of gay rights. This all makes for
conservative purity, but not, necessarily, for spellbinding radio.
Dave’s show is rather ploddingly produced with a penchant for book
reports, martial music, clucking like deacon about the moral decline of
the Great Unwashed, and genteelly mocking of Seattle Communists and the
Bolsheviks occupying the other Washington. He means well, and is
congenial enough except when’s doing his sissy-slap act with Producer
Jake.

Dave Ross is still the sanest, pithiest, and -
though some of our readers argue this point- the most liberal live
talker in town. He’s not pissed off, he has many talents,
interests. One of these days, he’ll retire or do something else… and
believe you us, there’s nobody waiting in the (left) wings to replace
him… they’ll probably promote Frank Shiers, or Phil the Junkie.

Dori
Monson (KIROFM m-f 12-3p) is madder, and louder than Dave
Boze- but a more and experienced and gifted broadcaster. His testosteronic
slagging, strutting, angry, wall-to-wall denunciations are directly
proportionate to his short stature, his long sensitivity over having a
girl’s name, and his fall from his erstwhile perch as the King of
Seattle Talk Radio. He was once a national security libertarian more
interested in round ball games and Las Vegas, but the longer he stays on
the radio the farther right he goes. Dori calls the governor,
legislators and the president liars, criminals and frauds every single day;
then bitterly decries that they won’t come on his show. Voters,
politicians and public servants don't respect what he says because they
don't have to...because his ranting doesn’t matter in any politically measurable
way.

Ron & Don (KIRO m-f, 3-7p) are getting a
new producer and a bonehead course in current
events. It probably won’t save them. They specialize in raising funds
for victims of news

(Photo: Ron Upshaw)

events,
and it doesn’t go much deeper than that. Our only hope for them is that
they're not replaced by Mark Levin.

Frank Shiers
(KIROFM m-f, 7-11p) is a nice man, who really wants to keep what he’s striven
to get- a 4-hour evening slot on KIROFM, the Zippo that once was a blow
torch. Although his politics are made-for-Bremerton from whence he
proudly came, we’re glad he’s given up teaching where he could do harm
to our children. He tries lots of things, like our patience, Monson
riffs, Glenn Beck voices, and homemade audio production; often whippings
through 2 or 3 topics an hour when his phone doesn’t ring. Evenings,
like weekends, don’t count for much in radio, but he IS a new live &
local in a market that’s shedding them like underwear.

Phil
The News Junkie (KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) Lonesome Phil is
arguably the best producer in town (the Dori Monson Show) However, the
wry guy whose politics and verbal riffs, for some reason, mimic Dori’s,
is charismatically challenged. He’s harmless enough, but unfortunately
for him, his show is rarely heard- it’s really a KIROFM fill-in for when
the Seahawks or Mariners aren’t being simulcast with KIRO’s AM sports
station which exists, supposedly, so the talk would never be interrupted
by sports. The paucity of total downtime between football and baseball
leaves Phil with plenty of Sunday afternoons at home.

Although
it's improved its numbers lately, KIRO's hurting and something needs to
change, but it’s hard to know just what they would or should do. Dave
and Dori ain’t going anywhere. Maybe the answer is to bulk up the
Morning News to better the day, try to wrench it from Glenn Beck on
KTTH. Problem is they’ve shrunk their news staff, and dumped their old
news brand. (Apropos of nothing: Jason Brooks has left or soon will
to become the money erg a stationing in San Francisco).

Peter
Weissbach’s weird little Pomposity Hour (KVI m-f, 5-6p) has
few listeners, but he's all that's local on KVI during the week. The
Seattle Times’ recent revelations about his skeezy and illegal
hiring practices would have sank him in less desperate days when Fisher
Broadcasting could afford to have a conscience. (Remember when they
sacked John Carlson for a conflict of interest? Or dumped Mike Siegel
when he gave conspiracy theorists whose smears of Mayor Rice he hoped
were given free rein on his show? If the Fisher family were still
selling flour and guided by their present-day moral compass, a 1-lb.
sack of flour would only weigh 14 oz.) Weissbach is probably only
around until the station decides which live, syndicated talker can be
finagled onto the roster- Lars Larsson recently declined, we’re told.

Mouthing Off (KVI 6-7p Sundays) bills itself
as "The View with Balls" and has slipped through the cracks of Fisher
Radio’s ineptitude. Although they don’t get much but an hour
of Sunday airtime the station apparently couldn’t sell to
penis-mercials, Dave Carson and Kevin Dodrill trade punches, bon mots,
and masculine but witty takes on sex, politics, and the meaning of life.
More of this on a different station could help turn around the talk
radio business, but we're afraid if someone upstairs finds out there’s
someone on the air on KVI under the age of 40, the Mouthers will be
toast. Not that that will happen any day soon, the Fisher suits don’t
really care what’s actually on the radie-yo, just what it costs them.

Mike
Siegel, (KKOL m-f, 12-3p) probably doesn’t count: he's a
Seattle veteran talker, long irrelevant who does
business talk on KKOL, a Salem Communications station (home of
LoueDobbs!)that shows up in no ratings lists- it's positioned somewhere
below 41st in the market.

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.